Art · 21st century
born 1963 · British
Young British Artists — confessional autobiographical art
Tracey Emin turned her own life — sex, abortion, drink, grief, illness — into the material of her art, in appliquéd blankets, neon handwriting, drawings, paintings and the notorious unmade bed. Once the enfant terrible of the Young British Artists, she is now a Royal Academician, a Dame, and the driving force behind an art school in Margate.
An unmade bed with stained sheets, vodka bottles, condoms and cigarette ends, shortlisted for the Turner Prize in 1999 (1998)
Tate (bought by Tate in 2015 after Charles Saatchi sold it)
My Bed; the Turner Prize that year went to Steve McQueen
No free image available (likely still in copyright) · see it on Wikipedia
A small blue tent appliquéd inside with 102 names — lovers, family, two foetuses — destroyed in a warehouse fire in 2004 (1995)
Destroyed in the Momart warehouse fire, London, 2004
Often misread as a list of sexual partners; it names everyone she ever shared a bed with
No free image available (likely still in copyright) · see it on Wikipedia
A twenty-metre pink neon in the artist's handwriting, installed in the west window of an Anglican cathedral (2008)
Liverpool Cathedral
For You — 'I felt you and I knew you loved me'
No free image available (likely still in copyright) · see it on Wikipedia
A nine-metre bronze kneeling woman placed outside a Norwegian museum devoted to a famous Expressionist (2022)
Munchmuseet (Munch Museum), Oslo
The Mother, made for the Munch Museum's waterfront
No free image available (likely still in copyright) · see it on Wikipedia
A neon in the artist's handwriting, two words long, hung in the hall of a prime minister's official residence (2010)
10 Downing Street, London (Government Art Collection)
More Passion — commissioned for the Government Art Collection and installed at Number 10
No free image available (likely still in copyright) · see it on Wikipedia